Recent polls, stickied throughout the ETH community, have shown the soft-fork well ahead, this seems to have given many a false sense that 'all is well', when in-fact were far from. Unaccounted for in these polls is the all-important 'vote' of big money & special interests who may have enough money on the line, to lose or gain, to make 'pushing' the vote to result in an outcome of their choosing worthwhile.

This is the first vote of it's kind in crypto-history, never before has there been so much $ on the line resting on a votes outcome. The huge monetary incentive, combined with the recent miner downsizing, are attributing ingredients to what I believe is a far riskier vote then the community, at whole, seems to think.

Popular mining pools Minergate and Ethermine, have announced voting mechanisms in place for the referendum, great I thought, until reading this part, I quote from ethermine; "The voting process will end a few days before the freeze period of the Child-DAO". In-the-know Ethereum people have related to my concerns on the matter; in the case something was to go wrong with the vote these pools aren't leaving us anywhere near enough time to come up with a solution.

So, what can we do?

Individually, the best thing you can do is to cast your vote. Collectively, we need to to see this issue discussed more as many seem clueless to the danger. Best case scenario, the community comes together and launches a "call to arms", of sorts, in which we encourage all(regardless of computer strength) to participate in the coming miner vote. Only through a large influx of community participation in the miner referendum can rest assured an outcome favored by the consensus being reached.

If we fail this biggest of tests, as much as I hate to say it - I personally don't see Ethereum ever recovering (this is coming from a pre-release Ethereum fanboy of the highest calibre). On the other hand, if the community collectively comes together and the consensus wins the day, I see the brightest of futures ahead. The kind of victory I can see taking us to the stars